PIERCE Designs One-of-a-Kind Cooler to Protect Livestock Vaccines

Today, PIERCE introduced its one-of-a-kind, patent-pending cooler, VaxMate. PIERCE designed VaxMate with the veterinarian and rancher in mind. The cooler stores livestock vaccines at a consistent, ideal temperature and includes a holster for syringe guns, protecting them from damaging UV rays. This is the first time a cooler like this has existed on the market.

“When you’re working cattle in Texas, it might be 99 degrees on a day in September or October by the cattle chute,” says Michael Cowley, VaxMate co-designer, “so you have to keep those vaccines at the right temperature, or else they’d be worthless on a calf.”

“You give that cow a vaccine that was worthless from the get-go, and you just wasted money and time, and you put stress on your cattle you didn’t have to,” says Cowley.

K+K Veterinary Supply’s Matt Malloy approached Cowley in October 2015 about creating a product that would protect veterinarians’ and ranchers’ vaccines. Cowley and PIERCE product design manager, Anthony Fairchild, immediately got to work on the design for what would become VaxMate.

Cowley and Fairchild gained inspiration from Dr. Ron Gill, professor and extension livestock specialist at Texas A&M University. Seeing the need for improvement in the vaccination process, Dr. Gill had created his own makeshift Styrofoam cooler with holes in it for his syringe guns.

The PIERCE team worked on the VaxMate prototype for over a year. The end product is a high-quality cooler with a built-in temperature gauge.

The thermometer can be set at your vaccine's degradation temperature. The VaxMate sounds an alarm if the internal temperature goes above or below the manually set temperature.

Rubber feet to protect the cooler from slipping on the bed of a truck or other surfaces.

Temperature is manually set. An alarm sounds when internal temperature goes above or below the set temperature. The alarm can be set to trigger at different temperatures depending on the needs of the vaccine.

“Producers spend thousands and thousands of dollars every year on vaccinating their cattle,” says Cowley. “If you aren’t vaccinating right, you’ll lose the cattle…[VaxMate] is an investment for the future that you know is going to last.”

VaxMate has now been tested and expert-approved by Dr. Gill himself. Fairchild said the feedback was positive: “He said, ‘It worked just like it was supposed to. It’s going to help a lot of people and save a lot of vaccine.’”

“At the end of the day,” Fairchild adds, “I’m really happy to see what all of us could come up with here to give to the end-user. To make their job easier and also to save them money.”